Paris Diary: The Joie de Vivre of French Entrepreneurs...
By Tom Foremski - December 8, 2009
I'm bowled over by the French startups and entrepreneurs I've been meeting the past two days. Lots of passion, energy, smarts, and great ideas.
I'm totally surprised because I had a totally different expectation. France has a reputation for bureaucracy ( a French word), for strikes, (the taxi drivers were on strike on Tuesday), and for archaic attitudes such as a strong belief in a maintaining a work/life balance, six-week vacations, a 35-hour week, and making it near impossible to fire a worker (you will receive as much as three years full salary if you are fired).
It seems amazing that France's economy hasn't shattered into pieces by now, and the country hasn't fallen below the waves of the ocean as a modern day Atlantis.
Instead, France has the highest labor productivity levels of all the G8 nations. And the quality of its entrepreneurs (another French word) is excellent.
I will be writing in more detail about some of the companies and people I've been meeting, later this week. And I'll be diving into why there is such a great current of innovation happening in France.
The French model might even become a template for other countries. That's because people from other countries are coming to France to set up their startups. Other countries risk a brain drain if they don't act to create a similar environment.
I'll let you know tomorrow about some of the reasons why France is enjoying an upswing its startup communities. I think you will be as surprised as I was.
[I'm in Paris all this week as part of the Traveling Geeks, a collection of journalists, bloggers, and PR people meeting with French startups and also attending LeWeb, France's premier Web 2.0 developer and business conference.]
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Comments (4)
It's refreshing to see a different point of view on french entrepreneurship. It's funny in a way because our most famous social media evangelist, Loic Le Meur, left France to SF, criticizing a lack of ambition. Hope things are changing on a long term.
Posted: December 9, 2009 1:31 AM
Antoine: The changes are fairly recent, I'm told. I felt the same about London when I left in 1984, that the environment discouraged ambition, especially in the media where success was strongly related to having attended a Cambridge or Oxford college...
Posted: December 9, 2009 4:55 AM
Great "teasing" article, I'd love to read more...and get the views on an outsider (I'm french:)).
Quick comments:
- I do not understand why a strong belief in a maintaining a work/life balance is archaic. I find it modern. It might be one of the reasons of the french entrepreneurs joie de vivre.
- Another reason is the social safety net. We do not have much VCs but the government sponsored unemployment insurance which guarantees 70% of your salary during 2 years when you loose your job. Lots of entrepreneurs have started using this scheme. Assedic might be the biggest french VC.
- Another reason is the use of sabbatical year (legal right) which means you can take a year off after 5 years of service and come back to your previous job afterwards.
- and lot more...
Thanks again for trying to go beyond the common rethoric of "inefficient french socialist"(btw US unemployment rate is higher than France) and open the horizon of archaic media entrepreneur that thinks they are improving the world using 120 caractere-limited immature- teenagers-conversations.
cheers
Posted: December 9, 2009 9:33 AM
Singap: Yes, the unemployment insurance that still allows you to build a company is a great idea. Regarding a work/life balance being archaic, I really do believe it is. As much as I would love to maintan a work/life balance, the reality is that work and personal life will continue to merge and continue to be expressed outside of a 9-to-5 division. A work/life balance will still exist but it will become fragmented throughout the day, and at times it might appear to dissapear altogether depending upon the demands of the work day. I make no pronouncement on this being a good or bad thing, but as an observation that this is a very real trend, and one that will affect the future behavior of many people around the world.
Posted: December 10, 2009 1:29 AM